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You are reading War and Peace, from the writer Liev Tolstoy.
It is easy to be overwhelmed by dozens of characters with tongue-twisting names, and you are also confronted with distances described in “versts”…
But what is a verst?
“Liev Tolstoy 1897” by F. W. Taylor
Tsarist Russia used its own lenght units.
While not essential to enjoying older russian texts, it may be helpfull to know its equivalent in modern units.
Internet allows easily to get information on versts:
One can learn to calculate distances “on the fly”:
So you read that Pyotr Ilyich walked 2 ¼ versts – what is this in miles?
length.in.miles <- 2.25 * 0.6629 return(length.in.miles)
[1] 1.491525
Now for Kilometers – if Ippolit Vasilyevich rode 5 2/3 versts…
length.in.km <- 5 * 1.0668 + (2/3) * 1.0668 return(length.in.km)
[1] 6.0452
And so on…
Verst Converter is an app that converts lenght values from versts to contemporary units, like mils, kilometers and nautical miles.
Source code hosted at GitHub
Runs in Shiny, a web application framework for R developed by RStudio
How to use the app:
Simply open the link Verst Converter
Chose the unity, give your input and press “Submit” (or “Enter”)
